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Russia and Eurasia Events

The game-changing events in Ukraine have exposed the fundamental disagreement between the West and Russia on the essential principles underpinning the modern international system. One year after the start of the crisis, is there any hope of a productive partnership with Russia? Nikolai Zlobin and Sergey Aleksashenko discussed the difficulties facing Russia and its on-again, off-again relationship with the West.

The Berlin Wall, marking the “line of freedom,” has moved to the borders of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko observed in an interview in May 2014. Before the current situation in Ukraine, there was a revolution. Now, newly gained freedoms are paid for with an ongoing crisis. How do artists reflect the political turmoil and societal rifts in their art? What are the roles of artists and the arts in Ukraine’s national crisis? Three prominent supporters of the arts in Ukraine will discuss these questions and more one year after the Euromaidan Revolution began.

The continuing diplomatic tensions between the United States and Russia have had a significant impact on programs that promote civic and individual contacts between Americans and Russians. Exchange programs serve as capacity-building initiatives influencing economic growth and jobs and how enterprises and individuals interact with their peers on the other side. A panel of experts and practitioners discussed how organizations and individuals dedicated to the mission of engagement between Russian and the United States are pursuing their work in the current atmosphere

Nearly a year after demonstrations erupted in Kyiv, Ukraine is forming a new government and considering the way forward after the recent parliamentary elections. Moldova faces parliamentary elections at the end of the month in which the survival of the current pro-European coalition is at stake. Belarus has been the seat of the Minsk process, the chief international effort to stop the fighting and find a settlement to the crisis in Eastern Ukraine. Russia and the EU are deeply interested in each of these countries, which all face unresolved questions about their peace, stability, and political orientation. Three former ambassadors to the region discussed recent events and prospects in Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine and a senior State Department official offered a US government perspective on developments in the region.

Russia’s incorporation of Crimea and continuing support for armed separatists in Ukraine demonstrates the changes the Russian national identity has undergone in the last two years. This talk focused on the dramatic revisions in Russia’s foreign policy doctrine since Putin’s return to power, looking at the specific worldview and major ideological conceptions that have prompted this change.

Twenty-three years after its emergence as an independent state, Russia’s institutions are still incomplete. It possesses open markets, competitive pricing, and appropriate fiscal tools to promote economic growth, but it lacks rule of law and independent courts. Paradoxically, Russia’s business community has never really championed private property rights. Instead most businesses have long operated under other countries' rules, essentially outsourcing the law to foreign jurisdictions. Vedomosti columnist and Wilson Center Fellow Maxim Trudolyubov discussed the changing economic environment in Russia in the aftermath of the Ukrainian Crisis.

The Kennan Institute held a town hall discussion on the latest developments in Georgia and the neighboring region with Ambassador Tedo Japaridze, former Georgian Foreign Minister and Ambassador to the United States, and now the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Georgian parliament. Wilson Center Global Fellow Ambassador Kenneth Yalowitz posed questions on Georgia's internal political and economic situation, developments with Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and Georgia's foreign relations.

This event highlighted the growing and complicated role of radical nationalist groups in European politics. It focused on the positions of Russian neo-fascist, fundamentalist, and ethnocentrist groups towards the Kremlin's recent foreign and domestic policies, as well as the complications resulting from Ukrainian nationalism in Kyiv's confrontation with Russia.The panel also addressed how Central and Western European populist and far right parties regard the events in Ukraine.

As oil prices drop, The Wilson Center is focusing on the political and economic implications of lower petroleum prices, as long as they continue, in a number of key countries. Leading experts will speak to what the future could hold for Russia, Iraq, Nigeria, and Venezuela with an added perspective on Saudi pricing power.

There is much riding on the early parliamentary elections in Ukraine on October 26. Ukrainians face an ongoing war despite the tenuous ceasefire in the Donbas region, and severe economic pressures. The desperate need for reform is still at the top of the agenda for Maidan activists who overthrew the Yanukovych regime in February, and for the international community which has pledged to support Ukraine financially through the difficult months ahead. How can the new Rada to be elected this Sunday make meaningful progress in the face of these daunting challenges?